For Alexander Chee, real life has never been as compelling a match for the reality that exists on the page.
When the acclaimed Korean-American novelist and essayist, who spent his childhood in South Korea, Guam and Maine, was in grade three, he’d find himself in trouble with his teacher. She couldn’t have chosen a better punishment.
“My third-grade teacher would give me detention, but I was delighted to stay in at recess and read,” Chee, who will appear at Sydney Writer’s Festival in May, tells SBS Life over the phone from New York.
“My mother would have these conversations with teachers and they would tell her, ‘Alexander doesn’t live in the real world.’” He bursts into laughter “And I would say, ‘that’s right. That is exactly my plan.’”
The role of writing is to make us more legible to ourselves. It is the way we hang on to what’s true and the way we connect with what is human in ourselves and other people.
Chee has been writing since the 90s and has influenced a generation of young Asian-American writers. He is best known for wildly imaginative works of fiction — Edinburgh, a 2001 novel about a Korean-American boy grappling with the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse and 2016’s The Queen of the Night, a sweeping story about the life of 19th century French opera singer Lilliet Berne.
His new book How to Write an Autobiographical Novel takes in his years as a queer activist in San Francisco at the height of the AIDS crisis, and his work as a cater-waiter to the rich while establishing himself as a young writer. It also touches on his relationship with money following the death of his immigrant father. It’s an exquisite and generous collection that explores the intersections of identity.
In essays such as Girl, which mine Chee's experience wearing drag and “passing” as a white girl during Halloween in San Francisco’s Castro, he draws on the tensions that stem from growing up mixed-race in America.
“Growing up, white people would say things about Asian people around me without thinking and the reverse was also true, and it was an interesting space to occupy,” he says. “I had a therapist that said you have very different relationships with different people which makes you feel insincere to yourself. This always struck a chord with me.”
I love giving myself over to these kinds of experiences in an ecstatic way.
He believes that this experience is surprisingly universal.
“In contemporary life, identity is less stable but has become a bigger part of the conversation,” he says. “I have a sense of belonging to different communities and most people do too.”
Although How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is memoir, it’s also an ode to the writing life, especially the possibilities and setbacks that afflict writers of colour (paging Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast). In his essay On Becoming an American Writer, Chee writes about the power and responsibility that comes with using words and stories to give voice to overlooked experiences — a mission that’s become more urgent in a world ruled by xenophobic instincts and far-right leaders like Trump.
“The way the country is treating immigrants right now, the family separation and internment camps — it’s not a policy response, it is a baroque and decadent cruelty,” says Chee, who adds that writing — along with a newfound love of riding his bicycle — is his form of self-care. “I think the role of writing is to make us more legible to ourselves. It is the way we hang on to what’s true and the way we connect with what is human in ourselves and other people.”
Chee’s work touches on vulnerability and trauma. But in The Rosary, he writes about how his rose garden in Brooklyn taught him about grief, loss and patience and how the glittering view from a New York apartment revealed his future aspirations. The power of his work lies in its ability to take beauty and joy seriously. It also gives marginalised writers pressured to focus on pain the permission to do so in a way that is nuanced and complex.
“In terms of pain and writers of colour, I think it can be a very asymmetrical experience depending on who you are,” he explains. “I don’t think people are very interested in Asian pain which is why we should be talking about it. But the thing I’m always trying to connect with in my work is beauty. I joke that I’m like a crow — I love the shiny thing. In my work, I love giving myself over to these kinds of experiences in an ecstatic way.”
Alexander Chee will feature in the How to Write an Autobiographical Novel session at Carriageworks as part of the Sydney Writer’s Festival (April 29- May 5) on Sunday May 5.
Neha Kale is a freelance writer. You can follow Neha on Twitter at @Neha_Kale.
